Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1887-06-09
9.

tanee is between four and five mile!
Foot-passengers turn off the road abou
two-thirds of the way to the bridge an
cross the river by ferry. We took tn
latter course, following up the stream
past many pretty residences. Havinl
all the day before US, we propose t
! take things leisurely, aud rest and re
fresh ourselves by the waysisle as op
portunity offers. l may say there il
no lack of wayside inns i'm Scotland
and that nqua composite is found with
alarming frequency.
Scotland has been fortunate abov.
all other lands i'm her poets and hel
novelist. I'm that she has reaped world
wide fame by their descriptions of heI
lakes and rapid streams; her rugged
hills and daisy covered wales. Scot,
and Burns have immortal
lied themselves. and made us
more familiar with their land than we
are with our own. Loeb Lomond; the
Highlands; the field of Bannock burn:
the bonny hanks of Ayr and wildly
rushing Tweed, who has not heard and
read of them since childhood's earliest
years, and longed tn see them for him.
self? Seeing them, it is impossible to
forget that these now peaceful hills
were for long years the scenes of bloody
conflicts; that the ripping Tweed was
once the doubtful liHe across which
ebbed and flowed the varying tide OF
victory and defeat; that the oder of
decay once filled the land, and that it
was dispelled only by the fire kindled
by Luther's lamp; that long suffer-
ing people by cruel prosecutions were
turned from peaceful lines into icono-
clasts, and hurting from their pedestals
the images set up for worship. strewed
the land with relics, such as / have
seen near Atbottsford - the moon lit
ruins of Melrose. Yet, bad not these
things occurred. Sir Walter Scott's oc-
cupation, like OthelIo's would have
been gone. He never could have
WRITE what he did, and Abbottsford
would not have had a name.
When we come to the point of leav-
ing the main road for the ferry below
we stop moment for view of the
Tweed river and valley, with Abbotts-
ford two miles i'm the distance and the
mountains as background. The view
Is an impressive one, and charming be-
yond description. Abbottsford is call
ed dream in stone and mortar. Plan
ned by Scott and also built under his
immediate supervisor; the lawns and
gardens about it, the farms and forests,
all remain to-day in the same form as
when their founder left them. We de-
scend by pathway to the river, aud
are rowed across by a woman, who
handles the oars like an amazon. A
pleasant walk under the shelter of the
groves brings us to Abbottsford, and i |
learn with surprise that have arrived |
on the second day of it's opening for the |
season.
On entering the reception room do |
not meet any one, but notice d sign to /
"ring the bell for guide' I pick up a |
huge dinner bell ani wake the echoes |
With it. Tn ten minutes the guide ap-
peared, and for two hours We explore |
the place.
The study is the first room we enter.
1t contains a table and chair and a
large part of the library; some paint
ings, statuary &c. The peculiar feat
ure about it is the little stairway in one
corner |. aiding to gallery above which
along three sides of the room,
and leading to the entrance of the pri-
vate rooms above. The object of this
stairway was to enable Scott to use
these rooms without disturbing his
family or guests. or permitting them to
disturb him. Here it was that Scott,
under the pressure of debt of nearly
q million of dollars, incurred by the
and failure of firm
Of which he was silent partner, wrote
those marvellous tales which took the
world by storm and saved to his heirs
the estate which he lad sacrificed SO
much to found, and in which he took
so much pride. In less than four years
he had paid nearly the whole of the
debt, but almost at the sacrifice of his
life for he was never q well man again.
After few years in the hope of bene-
fitting his broken health he made a
journey to Italy, but in vain, and he
came back to the home that he loved
almost better than anything on earth,
scattered in mind and body. "About
half past one enc P. NJ. on the 21st Of
september, 1882. Sir Walter breathed
his last in the presence of his children.
1t was beautiful day. SO warm, that
every window was wide open-and so
perfectly still that the sound of all
others most delicious to his ear, the
gentle ripple of the Tweed over its
pebbles, was distinctly audible as we
knelt around the bed, and his eldest
son kissed and closed his eyes,"
Leaving the chair in which Scott sat
while he called into immortal existence
those children of his fancy. the room
seems filled to overfiowing: Fergus
and Flora MeIvor, Meg .Merrilies and
Dirk Hatteraick, the Antiquary and
his sister. and Edie Ochiltree, Rob Roy
and Helen Macgregor, and Bailie Jar
vie and Old Mortality. aBd-but there
hpy, .9r,S In L.